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Month: July 2012

If crimes of sexuality were confined to the human species, we should not have an opportunity to study the biological beginnings of crime as observed in curious instances of criminality in animals, which raises doubts as to whether these inversions of the genesic instinct are with them unnatural phenomena, or rather an outward manifestation of an imperious functional want. Without exposing the details of the analogy upon which is founded the presumption, we are warranted in saying that as many of the lower beings in the zoölogical scale show virtues having analogy to those of man, we must expect to find parallel vices. It is an error to suppose that aberration of the genesic instinct is confined to our species, time, or race. Evidence shows that unnatural crime exists under all latitudes. It extends from the prehistoric time of the troglodytes up to Hippocrates, who stigmatizes it in his oath, and from his time to the present. I have observed common instances of sexual perversion in dogs and turkeys. A short time since, at the Washington races, a celebrated stallion was the favorite on whom the largest bets were made. A friend of mine, having ascertained from the groom the day before the race that the horse had procured an ejaculation by flapping his penis against the abdomen, accordingly risked his pile on another horse, who, by the way, came in ahead. Only a few days ago, to escape a shower, I took refuge in the elephant house in the Washington Zoölogical gardens, where are confined two male elephants, “Dunk” and “Gold Dust.” To my astonishment they entwined their probosces together in a caressing way; each had simultaneous erection of the penis, and the act was finished by one animal opening and allowing the other to tickle the roof of his mouth with his proboscis after the manner of the oscula more Columbino, mentioned, by the way, in some of the old theological writings, and prohibited by the rules of at least one Christian denomination.

This is a Korriphila HSP701 number 826, fitted with a 5″ barrel in 9mm Para, a single action firing system, and target sights. It is a fine target gun, let down only by its less than stellar single stage trigger, falling somewhere between a nice M1911 and a tuned GP35. Its mechanical accuracy is as good as it gets, and the firing cycle is very easy to control. This is a big, manly man gun, in the tradition of the Lahti L35 and the S&W N-frames, as accurate as, and probably stronger than, either one of them.

Edgar Budischowsky signs his guns. His German patent No. DE2822914 for a roller locked delayed blowback self-loading action reduces the layout of the CETME/HK descendant of the StG 45(M) prototype, a Ludwig Vorgrimler design for Mauserwerke, to four parts, namely a locking block (Schliessblock) that receives the locking roller (Verriegelungsrolle), plus the slide (Schlitten), and the locking wedge (Verriegelungskeil) receiving its initial momentum from recoil. The year code IH stands for 1987. This pistol was test fired on 26 February of that year, which happened to fall on my 29th birthday. It is a keeper.

The latch at the top rear of the slide racking serrations releases the bolt head for disassembly and cleaning. The hammer throw is very short. The loaded chamber indicator above the hammer allows for tactile verification of the chambering status. The rear grip strap is hand-checkered.

The robust milled trigger linkage is routed on the sides of the grip frame, a relic of the deleted trigger-cocking arrangement. The sear can be cleaned and lubricated through the circular port in the frame. The intricately machined bolt head contains a Walther PP-style loaded chamber indicator. The magazine is crimped to accommodate 9mm Para cartridges in a .45 ACP-sized magwell.

The safety lock is seen in the firing position. The roller can be seen at the rear of the bolt, and the passive firing pin lock, at the rear of the slide. The mainspring is retained by a screw behind the magwell. The stock screw holes are fully bushed.

The breech is of the push-feed, snap-over design, flanked by the extractor, the loaded chamber indicator, the feeding lever, the locking wedge, and the ejector. The muzzle end of the barrel contains the sole caliber designation on this specimen. The pistol can be converted to .45 ACP or 10x25mm Norma by replacing the barrel, the bolt head, and the magazine.

A nicely angled and polished feed ramp and a low barrel axis contribute to making the HSP 701 very reliable. Note the longitudinally dovetailed front Patridge sight secured by a screw and the massively constructed click-adjustable rear sight with radiused corners.

One of Gainsbourg’s most controversial musical successes was an antipatriotic rendition of the “Marseillaise,” which he sang in concert and recorded in the 1970s. It was the national anthem sung with a sneer, sung to stress the ultimate hollowness not only of patriotic symbols but of all attempts at significant association, at the delusion of belonging to anything larger than the basic, instinctual self, and it was, significantly, sung by a man who looked the part, whose very appearance was a calculated act of indifference to the decent opinion of mankind. Gainsbourg’s “Marseillaise,” outraged many, delighted many others. Its appeal, for those to whom it appealed, lay, of course, in the very outrage it inspired in those who found it offensive. There is something very close to the French soul in this nihilism of style. Lying beneath the smooth surface of more conventional French stylishness, the stylishness of international fame and big business, whose centerpieces are on the avenue Montaigne and the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and in the big tents set up in the Tuileries for the spectacular semiannual fashion shows, is, this leather-jacketed Gainsbourgian snicker, this reminder of contempt.